Welcome to the latest installment of my (very sporadic) D4Dementia blog.
The juggling in 2025 has been as crazy as in 2024 hence the lack of blogging time, but I’ve loved seeing links to some of my old D4Dementia posts cropping up on socials over the course of the year (most recently here), and I’m pleased that D4Dementia remains a useful and relevant resource for so many people.
With the end of another year comes a time for reflection, so for my whistle-stop tour of 2025 I’m going to share a few highs and lows with you from the last 12 months in this, my 290th D4Dementia post!
The BIGGEST moment of joy
I won’t dwell on my MBE too much as it has its own blog post, but suffice to say I’m still not sure it’s really sunk in yet and it’s been 6 months! I remain bowled over by all of the lovely messages I’ve had and the congratulations from colleagues, including the Consultus team at their June and October events and via recorded media including the Dementia Dialogues podcast which was my first interview after the MBE announcement.
On the same honours list was the lovely Chris Maddocks who is now a BEM (and has a lovely medal!). I’ve been incredibly lucky to work with Chris on many occasions in the last few years and I am so pleased she has received this recognition. Likewise for Joy Watson who was also made a BEM on the same list. Read more about the King’s Birthday Honour’s List 2025 here.
Making an impact in-person
Speaking of the Consultus events, it was fantastic to have the opportunity to share information and advice on dementia as well as having some personal post-speaking conversations with attendees. I’ve said so many times how it’s being able to help people with their own family situations that gives me the most satisfaction, although it still frustrates me immensely that I am talking about things and signposting to resources that, by rights, all families should know about at the point of diagnosis (or before). Clearly we still aren’t getting post-diagnostic support right for so many individuals and their relatives. More on that shortly!
In terms of supporting professionals, a big shout out to everyone who came to my talk on wellbeing at the Alzheimer’s and Dementia Show. I was honoured that there was standing room only and a huge queue for my handout at the end, which you can download here. I wasn’t talking about anything new, I’ve covered the 5 Ways to Wellbeing many times (including here), but I was glad to reshare it and see so many people keen to use my handout to improve the wellbeing of the people they support and themselves.
The Alzheimer’s and Dementia Show also gave me the opportunity to chair one of the most impactful panel discussions I’ve ever been part of as Pete Middleton and Clive Rogers took questions from the audience about their experiences of living with dementia. At one point the conversation represented raw and honest peer support that I think impacted everyone who witnessed it hugely.
Making an impact online
There is so much I could add about my virtual work – I seem to spend most of my life on Zoom or Teams – but in terms of impact my Dementia Community webinars are the big online success story of 2025. Attendance has grown by a whopping 120% in a year and I’m so glad to see a eclectic mix of people with personal experiences of dementia (including individuals living with dementia and family carers) and professionals (including a loyal following of Admiral Nurses and NHS staff) joining these sessions.
I’m pleased to have covered a range of topics, including:
- Continence
- Swallowing
- Hearing
- Environments
- Technology (thank you to the 3NDWG for stepping in to help me with this at fairly short notice)
- Books for people with dementia
- Delirium and more.
Whilst I blog less on D4Dementia, I would say that the information in the Dementia Community webinars has a lot of comparable value and is in an easily digestible, 1-hour format that’s free to attend. The webinars are recorded if you’ve missed any of them and the 2026 programme will be live here soon.
Also a shout-out to MacIntyre’s Dementia Special Interest Group meetings, which are twice yearly, free to attend, hosted by myself and my fantastic colleague Nicola Payne and are also massively growing in popularity, with a record attendance in 2025. Whilst dementia education remains in the spotlight as being patchy for many professionals, particularly those in social care, these meetings along with the aforementioned webinars offer a chance to bridge some gaps and provide a supportive place to learn and engage. Book onto the next Dementia Special Interest Group, on 24 March 2026, here.
On my soapbox!
Those who’ve followed my work since 2012 will know that post-diagnostic support is something I’ve vocally campaigned about for a long time (D4Dementia posts on this topic are here).
Post-diagnostic support still isn’t good enough, it doesn’t meet people’s needs and there is so much that could be easily addressed with prioritised dissemination of information and support, everyone having access to the Good Life with Dementia course and rehabilitation when they are diagnosed, and an Admiral Nurse throughout their life with dementia.
Sadly I can’t change it all (which is incredibly frustrating), but some small strides were made in 2025 with the role out of the Community Resource I created for Home Instead Norfolk. It says a lot about the current state of post-diagnostic support that social care providers are needing to try and fill the post-diagnostic void that so many individuals and families find themselves in, but bravo to Home Instead Norfolk and a huge thank you to colleagues there for working with me to create and deliver something I believe everyone in the UK should have access to (Wes Streeting MP are you reading this?!).
Speaking of Mr Streeting, he got an honorable mention in my conversation with Barry on The Care Social Podcast, perhaps the one interview of the year where I really got on my soapbox and got quite cross! Do have a listen. I was congratulated on my MBE by the Permanent Secretary at the Dept for Health and Social Care back in June and I think some joint working between myself, other advocates and the DHSC on dementia support is long overdue!
To conclude my soapbox section, I’d like to shine a spotlight on one of my really fun projects from 2025 as I followed in the footsteps of the fantastic Pete Middleton, who is a huge inspiration to me, to do some filming with ChiSquare Labs. My ‘Facts vs Myths: Understanding Dementia’ full-length film and the 5-bitesize versions can be viewed here. Do share them far and wide – too much stigma still proliferates in dementia, despite so many of us shouting about this for so many years (including on D4Dementia here) and anything we can do to combat this has to be positive.
The hardest part of writing this blog
Now to tackle the toughest topic: how things continue to change with my mum (I touched on this in my 2024 roundup). She gave up driving in 2025 and I’m convinced she is developing Alzheimer’s disease. The regular moments of confusion and forgetfulness and the difficulties with simple tasks are what have convinced me, and I know the stats are against us given that ageing (she is 86) and being female both make the development of dementia more likely.
I can’t change what happens biologically in her brain, and as much as the ‘moments’ make me immensely sad and frightened the ‘little wins’ as a I call them, when she recalls something very recent with accuracy or manages to do something I didn’t think she could or would (like getting used to taking taxis to continue with her U3A activities), are the things I have to remember to acknowledge and use as relief for my worry about what the future holds. It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions about all of this in the last 12 months, but above all I need to remember that I’m lucky to still have her and I need to celebrate that. Not easy when I’ve been though all this before with my dad.
Looking ahead to 2026…
On a personal level, my investiture and the memories I’ll make with my mum and my children on that day will, I think, be very special and, of course, I’ll be kept busy every day in 2026 with the endless, tricky ‘juggle’ of mum and daughter life as a sandwich carer.
On a professional level, there will be lots of training, writing, online and in-person events and much more. Notably, given my post-diagnostic support bugbear, I’m looking forward to supporting with the ongoing work to plan and deliver the West Berkshire Dementia Hub. I truly believe this could be a place that offers a gold-standard post-diagnostic support offering that is then replicated UK-wide. We live in hope.
To sign off (for now), I want to share another favourite motto (you can read my 2024 one here). It’s one I’ve used in training for years and have been explaining to my daughter recently to describe how we should always stand up for what is right, just and decent:
“The standard you walk past in the standard you accept.”
Wishing you and yours a gentle, kind year ahead.
Until next time…
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